Cosby Alumni Doing Pretty Darned Well!

No offense intended for James River and their state titles, but I thought that Cosby team was the best high school team I'd ever seen. Granted, my history of "big time" high school baseball only goes back about eight years. But regardless, they were loaded.

Imagine that summer when most of that team- all but one - combined with the top playes from Manchester to form an American Legion team.

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Emanski's Heroes said....No offense intended for James River and their state titles, but I thought that Cosby team was the best high school team I'd ever seen. Granted, my history of "big time" high school baseball only goes back about eight years. But regardless, they were loaded.

Agreed. My son was a varsity sophomore when these guys were all seniors in 2008. It was Cosby's first year, and they were loaded. Looking back at the talent level, it was very impressive throughout the district including some of the other non-elite teams at that point in time....you still had some very good players at Monacan, Midlo, Clover Hill and Bird. Cosby was very good talent-wise, but you add in a coach that knew what buttons to push and levers to pull....I thought they were the best team I'd seen to that point. MidloDad is right that they had JR's number that year too.

also Mitchell Shifflett was also on the team as a 10th grader (UVA). Ronnie & Hunter on the mound very tough 1-2 punch, hard to beat & Lowery behind the plate. That team was loaded with hitters,and hit alot. They hit for a high average and lots of power from top to bottom, ran well and played good defense and it didnot hurt that the Coach had been there before to handle the ego's.

Unfortunately Ronnie had some forearm problem of some sort that year and that held him out from pitching as much as they would've liked. Ackerman came on strong but after that they relied on a lot of guys who were good but very young at the time. And still they would just pummel people.

It just goes to show, when you get into single-elimination, anything can happen. I saw every inning of the "final four" that year in NoVa and had it been 2 out of 3 or whatever, no doubt in my mind Cosby would've won it all. Just a weird trick of fate with the weather that particular week.

What happened was that JR got by Cosby in the region finale when Jake Matthews, JR's third starter and a junior at that time, got their number with a lot of lefty off-speed stuff. That left JR at home for the state quarterfinals while Cosby travelled to Colonial Forge. Cosby got rained out and had to drive back and forth two days in a row while school was still in session. They got off to a slow start but had closed to within a run when lightning stopped play and hard rains ended any hope of resuming. Anyone who'd seen Cosby play knew that, given 7 innings, they would've found a way to win that game. But it was not to be. The game reverted to the prior inning and I think the official final was 3-1.